Plus ça change: as the conversation regarding TVs becomes centred on 4K and even 8K leading to the uptake of OLED-based devices, the decade-old phenomenon of screen-burn which plagued the development of plasma sets has reared its ugly head.
Identifying the risk, and attempting to alleviate it, the European Broadcast Union (EBU) has updated its official advice on how to minimise the risk of it occurring. To this end it has launched version 2.0 of its R 129 recommendation which now takes into account the danger of image retention on OLED screens equipped with new display technologies such as high dynamic range, in particular those based on the hybrid log gamma (HLG) standard.
In short, to reduce the risk of damaging production monitors, and by extension consumer TVs, the EBU recommends limiting the amount of time static content — such as logos, sports scores and news tickers etc. — is displayed as well as the signal level of this content. For standard dynamic range (SDR) the EBU recommends a limit of 40% for peak white, while for HDR (HLG) the limit is set at 47% of reference white (35% of peak white). This equally applies to highly saturated colours, which can also cause burn-in.
In short, to reduce the risk of damaging production monitors, and by extension consumer TVs, the EBU recommends limiting the amount of time static content — such as logos, sports scores and news tickers etc. — is displayed as well as the signal level of this content. For standard dynamic range (SDR) the EBU recommends a limit of 40% for peak white, while for HDR (HLG) the limit is set at 47% of reference white (35% of peak white). This equally applies to highly saturated colours, which can also cause burn-in.
